The Afghan Ministry of Finance has announced that the country is set to open a new customs border with Iran in the west of the country. This custom will be built on the Iranian side of Shamtaygh, a zone in Khaf city in Khorasan Razavi province of Iran whereas the Afghan related part will be built in Rozenak, an area in the Ghourian district of the Herat province, a zonal point which embraces the third Khaf rail track in Herat. The new Rozenak-Shamtaygh customs, which is scheduled to officially open in mid-November this year, will connect the two countries by rail and will have the capacity to transport two million tons of goods and 200,000 passengers every year.

New customs are being set up, as heavy traffic on the Dogharoon-Islam Qala border has often caused traders to complain, as well as the usual journey of commercial trucks carrying goods has been kept on halt for weeks before crossing the borders. As a result, the establishment of Rozenak-Shamtaygh customs will not only reduce the usual hectic traffic jams of Dogharoon-Islam Qala between Iran and Afghanistan, but will also speed up the trade process between the two countries.In this regard, Ali Reza Razm Hosseini, the governor of Khorasan Razavi, Iran, has also emphasized that with the operation of the new customs, we will no longer witness the accumulation and delay of commercial shipments at the Dogharoon border.

In addition, the new customs border will also bear other significant economic advantages for the two countries. Shamroz Khan Masjidi, the spokesman for the Afghan Ministry of Finance, said that the Rozenak-Shamtaygh customs would be an essential step towards boosting the trade between Afghanistan and Iran and would pave the way for smoother and better imports and exports trades for the two countries' merchants. Mohammad Ali Amir Fakhrian, Director for the Foreign Trade Department of the Khorasan Razavi Industry, Mining and Trade Organization, also stated that the construction of a new customs office could have many economic benefits for Khorasan Razavi.

It is noteworthy that in addition to the Chabahar project, Iran, and Afghanistan in recent years have tried to cooperate with one another by utilizing economic corridors to boost the trade between the two countries and also with countries residing in the region.In this regard, Iran and Afghanistan, in cooperation with Central Asian countries, have established the Kyrgyzstan-Tajikistan-Afghanistan-Iran corridor (KTAI), as well as the Iran-Afghanistan-Uzbekistan corridor. These officially launched economic corridors connect the Central Asian countries to the southern Iranian port of Chabahar via Afghanistan and Iran. Therefore, the new Rozenak-Shamtaygh customs would greatly boost trade in the region along with the Chabahar project, can possibly become a trading zone between the Central and the South Asian countries having Afghanistan and Iran as its focal trading hotspots.